Pax8 Acquires Microsoft Dynamics-Focused Bam Boom Cloud: ‘A Smart Play’ For Partners

‘Everyone is fearful of a looming recession,’ says Nick Heddy, chief commerce officer at Pax8. ‘But when this conversation is top of mind for lots of customers, and they‘re looking to gain efficiencies, Dynamics is the perfect thing.’

Denver-based cloud distributor Pax8 acquiring Microsoft Dynamics services company Bam Boom Cloud is “a really smart adjacent play to their core offering,” said one Pax8 partner.

“I really like what they’re doing,” Jason Wright, CEO of Houston-based MSP Avatar Computer Solutions, told CRN. “I assume I can go to them for sales engineering and they’ll scope out the project, so it’s a really smart play. It’s a very good adjacent acquisition.”

The Derby, U.K.-based company specializes in implementing Microsoft accounting solutions for small businesses and has created fixed-price implementation packages to make Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central more accessible for SMBs. The acquisition creates a new market opportunity for MSPs to easily add new lines of business services offerings leveraging Bam Boom’s Microsoft Dynamics expertise.

[Related: Datto’s Rob Rae Jumps To Pax8: ‘Their Passion For MSP Growth Is Second To None’]

“Pax8 has honestly been looking, ever since the days David [Warner] was at Microsoft, for a Dynamics partner who really got the SMB and who understood the MSP channel,” Nick Heddy, chief commercial officer at Pax8, told CRN.

David Warner, vice president of North America for Bam Boom Cloud, was part of the Microsoft Global Partner Solutions Team for SMB Strategy and Channels from 2018 to 2021.

“Those companies who are big and have brands that you may recognize, they’re very focused on midmarket and enterprise,” Heddy said. “Every time you get on a call you need to scope this thing, and that scope takes a week. I had been looking for quite some time and I actually saw when David Warner changed his title from Microsoft to Bam Boom. I reached out to him immediately.”

Bam Boom has a presence in the U.K., U.S., Canada and Germany and will be bringing 135 employees over in the acquisition. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“I just thought to myself, ‘We’ve got to do this,’” Heddy said. “Dynamics talent is impossible to find. As soon as anyone gets certified they get scooped up by one of the guys who goes after enterprise. When we found this we thought, ‘What a perfect match.’ They’re focused on SMB. They’ve automated the onboarding. They’ve got rid of the giant scoping and onboarding fees and can amortize that over the course of a contract, which is a perfect fit for our customers.”

And having Bam Boom under Pax8’s belt unlocks a new revenue stream for partners.

“Everyone is fearful of a looming recession,” he said. “But when this conversation is top of mind for lots of customers, and they’re looking to gain efficiencies, Dynamics is the perfect thing. If you want to get more out of your people, you need to automate business processes. Dynamics Business Central is the key to unlock those efficiency gains. If you can automate those you don’t have to hire another headcount.”

Warner said Bam Boom always wanted to go global and scale up.

“We’ve won global awards by being able to take our solution, fixed price, fixed outcome, turnkey solutions to dozens of opportunities and partners at a time,” Warner told CRN. “So imagine now turning that same capability over to 20,000 partners.”

And it’s a big for Bam Boom customers as they now have a nearly $1.7 billion firm behind them.

“Any MSP out there that’s awake and is paying attention and is tired of doing things the old way and the legacy way of the channel, they should be flocking to Pax8,” he said. “This just unlocked the key for thousands of partners to be able to sell Dynamics. We are the easy button.”

Avatar Computer Solutions’ Wright said Pax8 has, over the years, evolved its model into being a value-added partner and acquiring Bam Boom allows him to be a Dynamics provider to his customers.

“I love the move, I think it’s a really smart adjacent play to their core offering,” he said. “I think the market is ripe to be delivering those services. It makes sense for the MSP to get more into the data analytics, the data-mining side and we have to continue to evolve that way if we want to survive another 10 years.”